D&D General In 2025 FR D&D should PCs any longer be wary of the 'evil' humanoids?

[Charlaquin]

It doesn't make sense that they'd be tadpoles though lol nor that Elder Brains would exist, nor a million other things.

There's this extremely lame tendency in fantasy to make it so literally every races was humans at some point in the past/future, and this is always supposed to be some shocking revelation or "makes you think" but it's always the dumbest stuff possible lol. And I don't which sci-fi series heard that and felt bad because of it lol!

I guess you could make the Elder Brains a future evolution of human brains, and the Illithids a separate species that the future-humans enslaved… But I agree it’s a really lame “twist.”

I prefer the Elder Brains to be future Aboleth brains.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, yeah, in that setup I don’t think peaceful coexistence with Illithids is possible, at least not on the material plane. An Illithid trying to be good would be an Illithid not participating in the colonization of the material plane.

I also like the idea that it’s really the Elder Brains driving this colonization attempt. If the Illithids could be freed from the Elder Brains’ influence, they might be more amenable to returning to their home plane in peace.

It's always easier to accept that almost everyone doing wrong is misunderstood, confused, ignorant, or coerced, and the real bad guys are a tiny handful, or even just one, legitimately bad actor. Many stories I've seen operate just that way once it all falls out, with a lot of misunderstanding along the way.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Again, it doesn't matter. You're constantly Thermian explaining this. Like how you don't get it? Saying that people seeming people are not people does not make it OK!

My point was that they tried NOT make them seem people. I don't think Tolkien got out of his way to make them have some kind of society, or even a lot of what we may call free will. When I think of Tolkien orcs, I don't think "mmm, a civilization with a functional society, where everyone has free will, where a small part of the population is conscripted into armed service to fight a war and who happen to be on the opposite side of us" [while, as you mention, "us" is the side of Elves, who are for most part not nice guys in the first place]. If it was his intent, then it failed to convey it to me and I dare say he could have done a better job.

In a war it is mostly self defence and defence of others. And I don't expect standards of modern Geneva conventions from medieval war either.

If we don't apply our modern sensitivities, we can accept a lot of things. Think of the Thirty Years War, where both sides killed half of Germany's civilian population and thought they were on the side of Good doing this.

And the elves in Silmarillion in a lot of ways are not nice people.

Sure.

And if they want to eat my brains and I'd rather keep them, it is somewhat unlikely that we reach an amicable compromise on the matter. Like sure, they might be just grabbing a burger, but I wouldn't blame the cow for fighting back!

But should the cow kill you preemptively after you renounce eating her (while looking hungrily at her calf)?

 

[Charlaquin]

It's always easier to accept that almost everyone doing wrong is misunderstood, confused, ignorant, or coerced, and the real bad guys are a tiny handful, or even just one, legitimately bad actor. Many stories I've seen operate just that way once it all falls out, with a lot of misunderstanding along the way.

Well, that’s because art reflects life, and in life the real bad guys are a tiny handful of legitimately bad actors. But I wouldn’t characterize the masses those tiny handful use to enact their will as misunderstood. They’re most often just taking the path of least resistance.

 

[The Sigil]

And if they want to eat my brains and I'd rather keep them, it is somewhat unlikely that we reach an amicable compromise on the matter. Like sure, they might be just grabbing a burger, but I wouldn't blame the cow for fighting back!

Wait, I thought I was done milking the cow jokes in this thread. No, it's fine, I won't do more. But this seems like as good a place as any to drop this:
Oh, wait, we stopped the zombie talk too. Crud.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah, I’m with you there.

But I do wonder where the line is though. Are aberrations like mind flayer people? Dragons? Demons? Anything with an Int score above that of animals?

I mean, saying demons aren’t people because they’re made of evil stuff from another plane and that’s just the way it is, isn’t much better than saying that drows aren’t people because they’re made of evil stuff cursed by a god and elevated by another evil goddess, and not much more convincing. And then you get to the point where if demons aren’t evil, than what is?

We could say that « demon » is the name that a planar being takes if they happen to be evil, but do we really want to go down the road where your physical appearance changes according to the « nobility of your soul »?

So ultimately I just throw it all in the air and forget about good or evil altogether, basically saying to my players « I will telegraph whether the person/creature in from of you is an enemy or not ».

[edit] I see that the conversation had the time to evolved significantly during my phone call that prevented me to send the post…

I don't necessarily find it problematic if a sprit-being's appearance changes to reflect their nature. Or it might even change to reflect the expectations of the people looking at it. Humans expect "demons" to look in certain way, so that's the appearance a malevolent spirit adopts either consciously or instinctively.


But I think traditional D&D depictions of planar beings are pretty boring, they tend to across just as physical beings that are basically people than hang around at somewhat different world. And if they are like that, I would expect them to have more nuanced morality as well. I would not automatically assume that all devils and demons are "evil." And I think that can be thematically justified too. Lucifer, the literal Satan, has often been portrayed sympathetically. It is just a matter of perspective. In one long D&D campaign one of our main allies was an arch devil. He was not exactly a nice guy, but he had morals and could be reasoned with, and with interaction with his estranged tiefling daughter (one of the PCs) he certainly became a better person. And there definitely were humans in the setting that were way nastier than him.

Non-humans can certainly be alien, and farther we get from into realms of spirits and abominations that do not really have similar societies than material plane people more alien they can be. And sometimes that alien nature may be such, that it is destructive to our way of life. This does no necessarily mean those things are "evil" but might make peaceful coexistence challenging.

 

[The Firebird]

It's always easier to accept that almost everyone doing wrong is misunderstood, confused, ignorant, or coerced, and the real bad guys are a tiny handful, or even just one, legitimately bad actor. Many stories I've seen operate just that way once it all falls out, with a lot of misunderstanding along the way.

It is much easier imo because it avoids the very real clash of value systems. Most people really do believe they are doing good, but there are hundreds of value systems and these are opposed in significant ways. There isn't a button that says "remove brainwashing" and once you press it everyone is back to having Good Values.

It is easy to be a benevolent liberator when the people you liberate decide your values were right all along. But are you brave enough to help people who will keep on believing things you disagree with? It's just not fun and can come across as a DM gotcha.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, that’s because art reflects life, and in life the real bad guys are a tiny handful of legitimately bad actors. But I wouldn’t characterize the masses those tiny handful use to enact their will as misunderstood. They’re most often just taking the path of least resistance.

That to me falls into the category of "ignorant". I did mention four possibilities.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Well, in the take on them I described, they can’t survive on the material plane without a cerromorphed sapient being to wear like a space suit. So, nonviolent immigration is impractical for them. Maybe you could arrange some sort of… volunteer host system? But even that would be pretty ethically dubious IMO.

That’s not the backstory I use for them.

That inspires the thought of reskinning the Illithid as the Gou'ald from Stargate.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

It is easy to be a benevolent liberator when the people you liberate decide your values were right all along. But are you brave enough to help people who will keep on believing things you disagree with? It's just not fun and can come across as a DM gotcha.

Yeah, it tends to spoil the feeling of victories. Players play to have fun, and if all their "feats" turn out to be bad or soured, they'll be less happy for that.

Like "we spare him in exchange for help" => "he betrays them later" tend to produce players who spare noone, or "in my background, I have a parent..." => "scenario 1 : your parent is kidnapped by the BBEG" tend to produce orphans PCs.